Well done Intelligent Giving who have publicly exposed how unpleasant and badly delivered and managed 'face to face fundraising' (chugging to you and me) is in the real world, and boo to the PFRA who have attacked Intelligent Giving, saying that their methods were 'unfair', 'unprofessional' and 'damaging'. The responses on the Intelligent Giving website from fundraisers is something to be seen. Have you ever heard such a bunch of self-serving parasitic twerps defending lousy practice? No, nor me.
Fundraisers inevitably defend themselves by showing how much money is made from what they do. Many charities, they claim, wouldn't survive without this sort of fundraising. (Not that they have a vested interest of course). But is this so? I have seen some statistics that show that chugging raises money, but I have never seen NET statistics with all the costs of the fundraisers and the agencies etc taken out. Never, either, have I seen figures showing how much charities who don't use chugging do worse... And strangely, never have I seen statistics showing how a chugger who uses aggressive tactics in breach of the law (as described by IG and as experienced on a daily basis by most of us) raises more money than someone behaving in a socially acceptable way. (THIS DOESN'T HAPPEN! shout the fundraisers. What world do they live in?) Nor have I seen anything convincing that shows that this sort of behaviour doesn't damage a charity's reputation.
Get over it. People don't like being chugged. It is NOT the same as being asked to buy a copy of the Big Issue, it is not the same as being asked to put a few bob in a collector's tin outside Sainsbury's. It is exactly what it seems - an aggressive approach to get money in the street, invented entirely because people have got wise to the unpleasantness of those other fundraising methods,and mainly learned how to ignore, direct mail and direct telephone fundraising.
So here's a challenge to fundraisers: be inventive and come up with a method of fundraising that doesn't want to make me, and millions like me, want to punch you in the face.
3 comments:
[Interest declaration: I worked as a fundraiser for three charities for nine years, and have published a fundraising trade publication online for 14 years].
You say "it is not the same as being asked to put a few bob in a collector's tin outside Sainsbury's". You'd be surprised! As a tin-rattler myself I've had lots of people criticise me for blocking their way, shaking the tin, collecting for charity per se, still being there after they've finished shopping so they see me in effect asking them twice. Honest! You'll just have to take my word that I really didn't think I was guilty of those activities.
Every kind of fundraising I can think of seems to annoy a good number of people.
I'll try and avoid your punch in the face by suggesting some other ways of fundraising. But I'm afraid the method will, unlike the 'harmless' tin-rattling, include the option of making a tax-effective gift (e.g. signing a Gift Aid declaration), and of making the gift a regular one e.g. monthly/annual donations.
Not to do so would mean I'm promoting inefficiency by increasing a charity's fundraising costs. (Ask once to receive multiple gifts is a very efficient form of fundraising). And then you'd hear complaints about how wasteful and unbusinesslike charities are, offering another 'reason' why one shouldn't give to them or their representatives.
So, I reckon that leaves you with:
* telephone fundraising
* direct mail/email fundraising
* TV/radio/newspaper advertising
* face to face fundraising (in the street and/or knocking door to door, at fundraising events, or possibly within workplaces)
I get the feeling I need to start ducking...
Or have I missed a method or channel that is truly welcomed by the public and that raises the level of money that all the above achieve?
One final option: don't actively fundraise. That way, you won't upset people, and people are charitable enough to give spontaneously. Charities' websites would be crashing every day as the public descended on them in their millions... If only...
I regret I don't see a way forward for fundraising that won't inconvenience some people.
But you didn't read my points: I am opposed to telephone fundraising too, I am opposed to direct mail. I don't mind advertising, it gives me a choice. What I am complaining about is the whole ethos of the fundraising industry. It has become this highly commercial part of the third sector that makes me, and many others, extremely unhappy to be associated with the sector, or at least parts of the sector. The justification "well it raises money" doesn't wash. Either the charity sector is a force for good or it is not - if it behaves badly ( like chugging) then it loses the right to respect. The charity sector has got to get to grips with the fact that the way it is fundraising is alienating masses of people.
The challenge I posted was to think up less aggressive, offensive ways of fundraising. Personally I think time would be better spent recruiting and training and VALUING volunteers. Honestly, last week (not atypical) I gave money to someone collecting for a children's leukemia charity outside Sainsbury's in Camden Town. I bought a Big Issue from a nice bloke with a dog in Oxford, and I gave money over the internet to DEC after watching stuff on the news about the Congo. Also last week, in Upper Street in Islington I got grabbed by a chugger (he grabbed my arm , I shook him off and told him where to go), walked around another chugger putting his arms out trying to stop people walking past him and watched a third chugger put his arm around a young woman who clearly didn't want any attention.
They (surprise surprise) got nothing. And were VERY lucky not to get a smack in the face.
Good site.
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